


Strawberry Shortcake

by Arsenic



Series: Discipline and Punish [60]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-12
Updated: 2007-12-12
Packaged: 2020-03-29 23:37:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19030264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: There's forgiveness, and then there's absolution.





	Strawberry Shortcake

In the prison, Frank had gone to confession every Sunday. He would go and confess to violent urges, to questioning G-d, to everything that was allowable--expected--in the eyes of the prison system, if not, evidently in the eyes of the lord. Sunday after Sunday he would take his penitence and his absolution as easily as his bread and his wine and know, _know_ that nobody, not even G-d, could forgive him his sins in this instance. Worse yet, in that place, he couldn't ask, not really, not even if he'd felt he had the right to ask, he couldn't put the question out there to a priest who might have more loyalty to a warden than his G-d, a warden who might have all kinds of unknown motivations.

He tried going back to his old church with his mom when he was released, but he could see the looks in people's eyes, the way they stared at him--and worse, her. If there was forgiveness to be had, Frank was pretty sure nobody there was going to grant it to him. For a while he considered the possibility that maybe this was a sign that it was wrong to ask, but if his mom had taught him one thing growing up it was that you might not always get what you wanted, or even what you needed, but it was never wrong to _try_. So Frank did the only thing left to him: rode to the center with Mikey one morning, walked over to the church, and knocked on Brendon's office door.

 

*

Brendon said, "You want to what?"

"Confess," Frank told him softly.

"Um, Frank--"

"I know you're not a priest."

"It's not just-- I don't believe that I have any power to absolve. I don't believe _any_ human has that power--no offense."

"But you believe in forgiveness?" Frank asked.

"Yes," Brendon said firmly. "Of course, yes."

"Then call it whatever you like. I need to talk to you. In confidence."

Brendon looked at him for a long moment before nodding. "All right."

Having been given permission, Frank opened his mouth to start and found he didn't know where to begin. Finally he said, "Mikey was in there for two years before I was sentenced."

Brendon nodded. "Yeah. They fucked him up pretty good, huh?"

Frank stared sharply at Brendon. Brendon shrugged. "Part of my job is about hearing the things people don't say. Mikey doesn't say much, not about the things that matter."

Frank said, "Yeah, fair enough." He took a slow breath. "I-- I don't have a saving people thing, I have a picking-on-someone-your-own-size thing."

"Sure," Brendon agreed, sounding like he understood. He probably did, if in a very different way.

"Falling in love wasn't part of the plan. I didn't even know-- I thought I was straight. I even thought that after I saw him the first time and I stopped breathing for a minute. He didn't even look good; he was starving, he'd been _beaten_. It was just, I don't, his eyes? His eyes. And his lips. And," Frank gestured wordlessly.

Brendon said, "I'm in love with Ryan, not blind."

Frank smiled a little. "More than that, though."

"You waited four years for each other, so I kinda filled in that blank."

Frank actually laughed, and it made it easier to breathe, say, "Anyway, that wasn't the plan." He curled up a little. "But it was how things worked out. And I, I don't know, I kinda forgot where we were in some ways? Not all the time, not even most of the time, just when I was with him, I think. In there, though, seconds are...longer than they are out here? I can't explain it, it was just too much time, and people started-- There were rumors, and I had to put them down. _Had_ to." Frank clenched his jaw. He could hear how desperate he sounded even to himself. "Bob even-- I did have to."

"I believe you," Brendon said gently.

"I--" Frank hadn't thought about it until then, how he'd never said the word aloud, never even written it. "I raped him." Frank swallowed back the nausea the admission brought with it until he was pretty sure he wasn't going to vomit. "I raped him and I made him rape someone else." Frank wished, for a brief second, that he felt more guilty about the dead Skinhead, Ricci, the bodies that had piled up in the name of Mikey's safety, but he didn't. And he wouldn't ask for forgiveness for something for which he wasn't willing or able to atone. If he was to be damned over those lives, then that was the way it would have to be.

Quietly, Brendon asked, "Did it work?"

Frank opened his mouth to answer, realized he was crying, and that speaking would only draw more attention to that. He nodded. Brendon said, "And clearly, he forgave you."

Frank got himself under control enough to say, "Accidentally saved Gee's life."

"Accidentally?" Brendon asked. He sounded understandably doubtful. Frank shrugged. Brendon said, "You're sure that was what it was about?"

Frank started to nod simply from impulse but then stopped himself. Maybe Mikey would have stayed with him in the prison over gratitude, probably even. Out here, though? Where he'd had a chance at sweet-looking, kind, funny Jon? He might not have broken up with Frank while he was in prison, might have granted him that much, but Frank wouldn't have a matching tattoo that Mikey had initiated on his hand. He was pretty sure, anyway. "At least a little."

Brendon said, "Well, whatever it was, he forgave you."

"Yeah. Yes."

"But that hasn't allowed you to forgive yourself."

"When I first talked to him, he was willing to let me hurt him like that for a carton of yogurt, an orange and a roll. And instead I waited until he trusted me and did it for reasons that looked a little different, but weren't really, not all that much."

"You kept him safe."

"And myself," Frank spat. "Somewhat Pyrrhic for him, don't you think?"

"No."

Frank was a little taken aback at the simplicity of the answer. Brendon just said, "No. You got him to this point. Haven't you noticed how much we all love him? How he can take that and stand it and work within it? You kept him balanced enough that he was able to do that. It took a while, but they could have actually broken him, if you hadn't come along. I think-- It's possible they _did_ and you just fixed it to the place where he could do the rest for himself. He probably would have done the same for you, but I'm not sure he knew how. Yours is maybe trickier."

Frank said, "Yeah," and laughed without amusement.

"Ask yourself this: what, barring going back and doing it all over, would allay the guilt for you?"

Frank opened his mouth but Brendon said, "I don't need to know. Mikey does."

 

*

Frank walked to the park. It was still in the forties, but it was sunny, and Frank needed the shock of the cold. His stomach still ached. It took him over an hour to come up with a single answer to Brendon's question, but when he did, he got on a bus, went to the mall, and got himself some supplies. Once he was home he called in sick to work and waited the whole ten minutes it took for Gabe to call and say, "You'd better fucking be dying, Iero."

"Stomach flu," Frank lied fluently and without too much irking at his conscience. It was the first time he'd called in sick in over two months of working at the place. If he hadn't liked Gabe so damn much, he wouldn't have felt bad at all.

Gabe huffed. "Fine. Stay away from Bob."

"Aw, tonight is our weekly orgy night."

"I don't want to know about you and your incestuous ways."

"Yes you do," Frank called him on it.

"I only accept videotapes."

"I'm going to go vomit now."

"Glad to help you in the healing process," Gabe said. Frank hung up.

 

*

When Mikey walked in the room, the smile and, "Hey, what are you--" arrested on his lips upon actually looking at Frank. At which point he changed his question to, "Frank?"

Frank had thought it would be easy to give himself to Mikey like this. It was _Mikey_ , and no matter how much Frank might ask--and he wouldn't, he wouldn't do that to Mikey--Mikey wasn't going to hurt him. Still, it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy standing in the dress he'd found, the stockings and the shoes that would have made it hard to stand even if he hadn't been shaking. Putting on the makeup had been hell. He'd poked himself in the eye three times, unable to still, to manage some semblance of coordination.

Mikey crossed the room and put his hands at Frank's elbows. "Fuck, you're shaking. Come--" He pulled Frank gently until they were both sitting on the bed and wrapped him in a blanket. "Cold?"

Frank was, but he was pretty sure it was from his own emotions, that it had more to do with the swirling in his head than the temperature of the room. He didn't know what to say. Mikey put his fingers under Frank's chin and made Frank look at him. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Frank said, "I called in sick."

Mikey waited. Frank didn't really have a huge problem finding words, but he was sitting on his and Mikey's bed, the skirt of the blue cotton babydoll resting softly between his thighs and he wondered if this was how women felt all the time. If the outer trappings made it harder to just say the words beating at the inside of one's head. "I-- Brendon thought-- I wanted to feel what you felt."

Mikey frowned. "What I felt?"

"When I made you--" Frank put his fingers to Mikey's lips. They were still shaking. "With lipstick. And stuff."

"Made me?" Mikey asked.

Frank blinked. Mikey said, "I remember it kinda differently."

Frank wondered if that was a coping mechanism, or if Mikey really didn't relate Frank back to his cross-dressing endeavors. Tommy did. Frank didn't even have to ask to know. Mikey touched his thumb to the corner of Frank's eye. "Can I ask a question?"

Frank closed his eyes, leaned into the scant touch. Mikey said, "Yes, then?" and Frank could hear the smile in it. Mikey asked, "What did you see? When I put on the makeup? Did my hair? Wore a skirt?"

Frank opened his eyes. "Courage."

Mikey said, "C'mon, up," and pulled Frank off the bed, into the bathroom, by his hand. Frank was pretty sure Gerard caught a glimpse of them, but he didn't say anything. Frank didn't think it was likely he would. Mikey closed and locked the bathroom door and then put Frank in front of him, facing the mirror. Frank was a little taller than he normally was, the white patent Mary Janes he'd gotten having a slight heel on them. He'd figured he deserved that.

Mikey said, "When I-- That first time I blew you. I don't think I ever told you what I was thinking."

Frank shook his head. Mikey put his hands on Frank's hips, but didn't touch him otherwise. "I was thinking how you were beautiful. Not like a girl, but... Not like most guys, either. Definitely not the ones in there. Just, sharp. Striking. I didn't have a better word for it."

Frank nodded. He knew how that felt. He had, on one or two occasions, made up adjectives for Mikey. Mikey continued, "You can wear this, you can wear it wherever you want. But if I got to be brave in girl's clothes, then you have to be beautiful."

Frank took a shaky breath. "If it's not humiliating--"

"You never made it humiliating for me."

"But _they_ did."

"Who gives a fuck about them? You made sure all they could do was call me names. Sticks and fucking stones, Frank."

"Mikey--"

"Look at yourself," Mikey hissed. If he'd had any ability at all, those three words, Mikey's tone--he expected Frank to obey--would have been more than enough to have him hard as hell and ready to go. Frank looked and shivered, waiting for Mikey's next move. As it turned out, Mikey's next move was to repeat, " _Look._ "

That time, Frank understood the order, and he did, he looked. At first there was nothing, just a grown man who didn't really know what he was doing with things like rouge. His eyes flickered to where Mikey was in the mirror and he caught Mikey's expression, the _want_ in it. Frank looked again. The dress was a pretty color, surrounded by all of his ink. His legs felt unusually long, his hips maybe too sharp, rising out of the shoes. His cheekbones were cutting, his eyes huge in the faint shimmer of the eye shadow. His lips looked like they needed kissing. "Oh."

Breathless, Mikey asked, "Are you wearing panties?"

Frank nodded. Mikey said, "Take them off. Just the panties."

It was a little complicated with the shoes and the stockings that came up to touch his thighs, but Mikey held on and didn't let him fall. He placed the panties--simple and white, but with a single strand of fabric at the sides--on the counter, next to the sink. Mikey bent slightly and then straightened, running a hand over the top of one stocking, up Frank's thigh to his cock. The skirt pooled over Mikey's arm. Frank could hear Mikey fiddling with his pants, pushing them down. Mikey slid the other hand up Frank's other leg, bringing the skirt up just a bit more so that he could rest his cock in cleft of Frank's ass.

Mikey said, "Don't take your eyes off that mirror," and established a rhythm, rubbing into Frank at the same pace that he gently, gently fisted Frank's cock. It clearly wasn't going anywhere, but that didn't seem to bother Mikey. It sure as fuck didn't bother Frank, not with Mikey this close to him, the soft skirt wafting over Frank's skin, even the tip of his cock now and then. He couldn't help biting his lip and the visual was more than a bit dirty. Mikey whispered, "So fucking beautiful."

Frank sort of believed him.


End file.
